book talk time!

[marketchippie]

So, I have ridiculous reading this term-my Russia & the West seminar is like all primary sources, my Gender & Law obviously features legal documents heavily (actually wish they'd do that more, the cases are loads more interesting than secondary-source books cataloguing and summarizing the cases)-and while I am deeply into it all, it does mean that

Comments

[vega_ofthe_lyre]

Well, for the most part I don't mind the books about the criminally insecure everywoman as you do, because I am not a femme fatale and even if it is a cheap way out I do think that Meg Cabot Safe Space can function as exactly that - a safe space - definitely my defense mechanism, the books I read when I'm tired of the tomes of war and bloodshed I read for history classes or the dreary novels about miserable people or when my own depression and anxiety are wearing me down and I am dazed and dysfunctional and it's a comfort, this framework where everything is sorted out by the third act and the everywoman gets what she deserves. I say this only to clarify that my escapist fiction is probably not escapist fiction that you would like, so I don't know what to recommend you! (Even though in my defense I like to pluck the best from the genre, but anyway.)

I know I have recced Jennifer Crusie up and down the block to you, and want you very much to read Maybe This Time, which is her gothic - doesn't ultimately live up to its fantastic setup but it's still chock full of delight. Sophie Kinsella is a darling but I have had to give up on the Shopaholic books - my God your lives are unhealthy - but that said, her standalones are a lot of fun? I just finished I've Got Your Number, which is being released on the 14th, and it's probably the best book of hers that I've read. And Remember Me was great, and a bunch of her old books under her actual name are being reissued, and they're mindless but diverting. Anything by Julia Quinn is a go, I promise, but especially her Bridgerton books. And I'm halfway through Mr Cavendish, I Presume, and it is a glorrrry, so also that! Anything by Eva Ibbotson, of course, especially A Company of Swans and A Countess Below Stairs and A Song for Summer. Anyway. You know I'm around for more specific requests!

[marketchippie]

You know, I found a Sophie Kinsella novel (written under a pseudonym-which is remarkable to me! Why have a pseudonym if you're already writing Sophie Kinsella novels?) about a woman who crashes funerals for rich boyfriends, and ngl, I was tempted. Found it at the airport in Heathrow, fuck if I can remember now. WHY AM I A GOLDDIGGER-NOVEL MAGNET. Golddiggers and incest: they come to me, I swear.

And ha, I took stock of the Crusie gothic last time you recced! Note to self: if anything's begging for a cheesecake B&N read, it's that.

(I KNOW MY TASTES ARE WEIRD AND TERRIBLE, I DON'T KNOW HOW TO NAVIGATE THE WORLD. I just want everything to be "Mrs. Beast", Emma, which AUGH INDEBTED NOW THAT I KNOW ABOUT THIS POEM. ♥!)

[lareinenoire]

I want to second Eva Ibbotson. I picked up A Company of Swans completely by accident a few years ago and it was just delightful in every way.